Certain sabermetric analyses, such as those of batting order, are based on simulations. Some will argue that things based on simulations are less likely to gain practical acceptance in baseball. This may be true, but does it really make sense to rule out using simulations for baseball strategy given the prevalence of simulation in the contemporary world?
Last week, we asked whether the Red Sox slow start was cause for concern, and concluded that while their struggles had taken away a presumed talent advantage in the race for the AL East, they were still likely a playoff team and could stay the course until the ship righted itself. But I’m not sure things are so rosy in Minnesota, where it might be time to sound the alarm.
It’s not just the Twins 4-8 start and early three game deficit to the White Sox that’s the problem – it’s all the issues associated with their roster that have arisen since opening day. As Joe wrote yesterday, Francisco Liriano’s struggles are a legitimate concern, as his velocity is down and he’s looked nothing like the pitcher who led the American League in xFIP a year ago. Tsuyoshi Nishioka is on the DL with a broken fibula, and the Twins weren’t exactly deep up the middle to begin with. And now news comes that Joe Mauer is going on the disabled list with “bilateral leg weakness”, an unusual diagnosis and one that leaves an open-ended time frame for his return.
The Twins already looked to have some flaws heading into the season; the lineup was still too left-handed, nearly the entire infield offered uncertain productivity, and they were essentially trying to replace the entirety of their bullpen from last year. The Twins didn’t enter the season with much of a margin for error, but a disastrous first two weeks of the season have left them with a hole to climb out of and a smaller shovel than they expected. Mauer is the guy who makes this whole thing work, and if he’s going to be sidelined for more than a couple of weeks, the Twins are legitimately in trouble. Minnesota’s 2011 season could be slipping away before it ever really gets started, and unfortunately, that might be the least of their worries right now.
This edition of One Night Only contains sexy, updated Team NERD scores (without the POFF variable).
Friday, April 15th
Chicago Nationals (3) at Colorado (9) | 8:40pm ET
• Matt Garza pitches tonight for the Cubs.
• He has a 5.68 ERA through two starts, but has also done this: 12.2 IP, 14.21 K/9, 2.13 BB/9, .541 BABIP, 40.0 GB%, 1.28 xFIP.
• What?
• Also, don’t look this second, but Troy Tulowitzki’s doing this through 57 PA: .364/.491/.909 (.273 BABIP), .552 wOBA, 235 wRC+.
• Without defense included, he’s posted a 1.3 WAR. Already.
Gotta get up to get down, Johnny.
Moving the Needle: Johnny Damon spoils one for the Twins with a homer,+.807 WPA. If your first closer doesn’t work out, you can always go to your second closer, right? The Twins tried that last night, but neither Joe Nathan nor Matt Capps did their jobs. Nathan allowed a walk and a pair of doubles in the ninth that turned a 2-0 lead into a 2-2 tie. Then, in the 10th, after the Twins cobbled together a run, Capps let the game get away. Folk Hero Sam Fuld got on with a single, and Damon slapped a Capps fastball a long way, alllll the way out to right field. (And the HR Park Factor for lefties at Tropicana is 89, so that wasn’t like jacking one at Yankee Stadium.)
Notables
Matt Joyce: 3 for 4, 1 2B. That double tied the game in the ninth. That’s a nice beginning to his recovery from a 4 for 29 start.
Carl Pavano: 8 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 7 K. That’s 9 ground balls and 7 strikeouts to the 29 batters Pavano faced. After a rough first start he’s bounced right back.
Also in this issue: Royals 5, Mariners 1 | Marlins 6, Braves 5 | Yankees 6, Orioles 5 | Astros 1, Padres 0 | Tigers 3, A’s 0 | Cardinals 9, Dodgers 5 | Phillies 4, Nationals 0 | Rockies 6, Mets 5 (1) | Rockies 9, Mets 4 (2) | Brewers 4, Pirates 1
Episode Seventy
In which the guests know a thing or two about small sample sizes.
Headlines
Small Samples — Totally Scrutinized!
The Sabermetric Box Score — Considered Briefly!
The Boston Red Sox — Largely Ignored!
Featuring
Dave Cameron, Full-Time Employee
Joe Pawlikowski, Morning After-er
Finally, you can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.
Audio on the flip-flop. (Approximately 50 min play time.)
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In any small sample of data, you’ll always be able to find things that stand out. Nick Hundley is now apparently Ted Williams, which is kind of a neat trick for a catcher who plays half his games in Petco. Of course, we’ve all had “small sample size” engrained into our thoughts, so we can look at these statistical abnormalities and realize that, given time, they’ll straighten themselves out. By and large, they don’t actually mean anything, but they’re still kind of interesting.
To me, perhaps the most interesting of the early season statistical flukes is the large group of sluggers who have essentially stopped striking out this year. We talked about Joey Votto on Tuesday, but at least his reduction in strikeouts is somewhat understandable — pitchers have just stopped throwing him strikes. However, Votto is far from the only slugger whose K% has taken a drastic nosedive to begin the season.
Suppose you’re the manager of the Milwaukee Brewers. You’re at home against the Chicago Cubs, and going into the bottom of the eighth inning, you’re up 5-0. So you’re feeling pretty good about yourself. On the other hand, your closer John Axford has been awfully shaky lately, and you’d probably love to scratch across an insurance run. With one out, Mark Kotsay walks, and you have Carlos Gomez on the bench. Would you let Gomez loose on the bases and see if he could make it around the bases with some old-fashioned National League speed?
Well, if you were Ron Roenicke on Saturday, April 9, that’s exactly what you’d do. Gomez came into the game and just abused Jeff Samardzija, stealing second base on the second pitch Samardzija threw to the next batter, Wil Nieves. When Nieves worked the count full, Gomez took off; it wound up being outside, and Gomez was standing on third and Nieves was on first. Samardzija managed to strike out the next batter, Jeremy Reed, but then he walked Rickie Weeks to load the bases, and walked Nyjer Morgan, which brought Gomez around to score. The Brewers won the game 6-0.
Now, we all know that there’s an unwritten rule that says that you don’t try to steal bases when you’re up by a lot of runs in late innings. Read the rest of this entry »
The ZiPS in-season projections courtesy of Baseball Think Factory’s Dan Szymborski are now live on the player pages making the pre-season projections hidden by default.
Remember:
ZiPS (R) – What a player is projected to do the rest of the season.
ZiPS (U) – A player’s full season updated projection.
Updated and Rest of Season ZiPS are also available in the sortable projection area.
There is a general consensus that Manny Ramirez went out at the absolute nadir. His exit from the game was the anti-Ted Williams — the very worst way you could leave. Thus, on the barstool of American sports, the (perhaps warranted) skewering began. The fervor reached a pitch to which Joe Posnanski returned a volley. This week, he noted that, in the debate about steroid users and the hall of fame, those in the ‘against’ category are the most impassioned. He mentioned a Cleveland Frowns post that attempted to put some fervor into the pro-Manny side, but the fact remains:
If Ramirez “deserves” an impassioned defense, then Barry Bonds deserves one more.
By the time he completed his third start in 2010, Francisco Liriano was already getting national headlines. He had thrown 21 innings, striking out 17, and allowing just three runs. After a disappointing return to the mound in 2009, it appeared that the Liriano we had seen in 2007, or at least some facsimile thereof, was on his way back. This year Liriano is making national headlines, and again he has people comparing him to a previous incarnation. Only this time it has been negative headlines, and the connection has been to his 2009 self. Plenty has gone wrong in the early going for the 2010 FIP and xFIP leader, and no, it probably doesn’t have much to do with pitching to contact.